New York Nine

In part one of my take on the Angels off-season moves we dealt with the loss of Chone Figgins and the addition of Hideki Matsui, and here we are looking at the addition of Fernando Rodney and the loss of John Lackey respectively. Again, the addition of Rodney is not exactly a replacement for Lackey, but as the Angels payroll stands at 113million, almost exactly what it was last year, it seems that Fernando is the only pitcher that will be brought in to fill the void with the loss of John Lackey and what a void it is. As I noted earlier, Lackey has been the de facto ace of the Angels for the last few years and has proven himself to be a valuable and reliable starter, averaging a career 117ERA+ and 219 innings and pitching big games in big spots for the Angels since the 2002 World Series. To be sure, while Lackey’s numbers may not scream “Ace” he has clearly shown himself to be a valuable and an above average starter in the American League in the prime of his career. And yet in the face of losing such a valuable starter what has Anaheim done? Not a thing, well nothing in the starting rotation at least. Instead, the Angels have signed the former Tigers closer to a two year 11million deal, and it seems unclear as to whether it was worth the money.


In his first year s fulltime closer, Fernando Rodney had a season that was deceptively mediocre. On the surface, one could argue Rodney had a breakthrough season for the Tigers in his age 32 season, accumulating 37 saves while only having only blown one opportunity. To be completely literal, Rodney did everything you could ask a closer to do, that being have gone into practically every opportunity to save a game and accomplished just that, but is that really the best indicator of Rodney’s true talent? I for one would argue no, as the rest of his numbers indicate that Rodney is a guy who is more lucky than good. For sure, for a guy who supposedly lives on his electric stuff Rodney’s strikeout numbers took a serious dive the last year, going from an impressive 10.9 strikeouts per nine innings to a pretty pedestrian 7.1. This is most likely the product of a decreased rate of swinging strikes by opposing batters for Rodney, once averaging 11-12% for his career fell to only 9% last season. Such a drop may not seem that big of a deal, but if the subsequent strikeout rate drop are any indication Fernando will have a more difficult time getting betters out.


As if it’s not bad enough that Rodney is striking out less batters, Fernando is similarly walking batters like it’s going out of style. Indeed, never a guy who exhibited great control, Rodney continued his wild ways walking a pretty horrible 4.9 batters per nine innings, as a reliever! Especially when you’re dealing with high leverage situations like the ones closers live and die in, walks can be a pitcher’s undoing, and someone who walks nearly five per nine innings is flirting with disaster with every pitch. Admittedly this is a significant improvement from last year when he had an embarrassing 6.7walks per nine, a career rate of 4.6 suggests that this is not some sort of statistical aberration; the guy just can’t throw strikes.


Add up terrible peripherals like the ones exhibited here by Rodney and you have exactly what you’d think, a pretty lousy pitcher. With an unimpressive 4.40 ERA and 104ERA+ respectively, Rodney has been average at best and shitty at worst. Why is this guy worth 11 million again?


In sum, combined with the signing of Hideki Matsui the Angels in my opinion have made a half-assed attempt at improving their team, replacing valuable assets with marginally valuable ones on the cheap. I think Tony Regins got lucky last year, gambling on Kendry Morales to give him similar production to that of Mark Teixera and getting away it, but such gambles cannot and will not work out this time. Instead of recognizing the immensity of their losses, the Angels seem to be taking their competition for granted and assuming that they have enough talent within to let every high priced free agent walk away without even trying to retain them. Maybe it will work out and maybe they will still manage to squeak by into the AL West division championship, but as the Mariners improve and the Talented Young Texas Rangers have another year of experience under their belts, one can only wonder if the Angels’ gambles will ultimately proof foolish.